The Airlines Tell Big Fat Stories

Corporate jet pilots make bad airline passengers because we know that there is a better way to travel. However, when we go on vacation or go to company recurrent training, we don't get to take the company airplane. We go on the airlines, same as everybody else. There are no "passes" such as airline employees get, either.

Corporate pilots are not especially fond of sitting in the back of an airliner. We usually prefer that superior view up front. Deprived of that, and the control over our fate that goes along with it, we sometimes become sullen and snarky, making unsolicited comments to our family members or co-workers traveling with us about the quality of the landing or the cack-handed suddenness of the descent.

We're instantly suspicious when a flight gets cancelled because we've seen the airlines lie through their teeth so many times. They like to say things such as, "due to a mechanical failure," or "bad weather at the destination," when they mean, "Oh, we just didn't have enough of a passenger load on that flight to make it financially worthwhile for us. We'll just rebook them--if it's convenient for us."

I've caught them using the old "bad weather" trick several times. It takes seconds to check destination weather in aviation weather format through an app on your smartphone. And yet they still expect people to believe this same tired old whopper. Ditto for the one about "mechanical problems." If those airliners had as many real mechanical problems as they would have you believe, the FAA would never have certified anything in their current fleets, deeming those models hopelessly unreliable and unsafe.

It's all about the money, don'tcha know. They just don't seem to be able to find enough ways to extract more from us, either. I know I'm a dinosaur, but I remember when you didn't have to pay to check bags, when free, halfway decent meals were served on multi-hour flights, when it didn't cost extra to book a flight over the phone or to change a reservation, when there was no extra fee for unaccompanied minors, and when the inflight movie was free.

Now some airlines are charging for soda, never mind alcohol--and some are actually charging for water! One airline was seriously considering charging passengers to use the lavatory--no kidding. They deliberated for a whole year before they gave up the idea. I heard a rumor that they were thinking of exempting purses from the "personal item" list, but they seem to have backed off that one. Any woman I know who carries a purse feels that it's practically part of her body. It would be like asking men to pay extra for carrying their wallets.

As a pilot, I can certainly understand that baggage increases weight and increased weight requires an increase in fuel burned, but come on--they used to just accept that as a legitimate part of the cost of doing business. Now they're simply getting greedier.

There was a time when flying on the airlines was fun and exciting. It was an adventure to take an airplane somewhere. Now it's just plain drudgery to be endured like a ride down a potholed road on an old bus full of chickens--the experience is no longer pleasant and you know you're being cheated out of comfort and convenience so large corporations can make obscene profits.

Those big, new airplanes are not so much about "modernizing the fleet" as they are about packing more people into one airplane so they can make more money per flight. If you buy the snake oil they're selling about "extra seat room," I have a rice paddy in Phoenix you might want to purchase. More likely they'll give you some extra hookups for electronics and charge you through the nose for them and the seats will be the same or smaller.

In the detective story world, the rule of thumb when attempting to solve a murder is "Follow the money." Any time the airlines advertise some new innovation, remember to ask yourself how they might be able to profit from it. Because it's not really about creating a superior air travel experience so they'll attract repeat customers, it's making it seem that way by telling us a big fat story and hoping we'll believe it if they repeat it enough times, meanwhile nickel-and-diming us to death under cover of all that hype.

Remover of Obstacles, Book One in the Jude Hayes Mysteries series, quote coming right up:

“Morning, Boss, you had a call from DBC a few minutes ago. They want to reschedule your appointment to tomorrow morning. Your schedule on the computer looked good for that, so I told them okay.”

Ming is pretty good about taking messages if he’s not immersed in a computer search. Communication has been known to suffer when he is, however.

“And you didn’t call me on my cell, why? I could have been motoring down I-70 on my way to Aspen already.” I wasn’t really annoyed, more amused that Ming was being Ming. I try to let things roll off my back when they really don’t matter. I had not, after all, already left for Aspen.

“I knew you’d be in for the doughnuts, Boss. No bigs.”

“Oh, you did, huh?” I tried to look stern and failed miserably. Ming had my number. And he had brought fresh Super Glaze doughnuts, after all.

“Mm-hmm.” He stuffed half a doughnut in his mouth with one hand and reached out for a small sheaf of paper newly emerged from the printer with the other.

“This is the business profile for Tremont’s. Kind of an amazing business. They have no long-term debt. Seems they bought the restaurant with cash ten years ago. Not even any subsequent loans for capital improvements or equipment.

“Man, how do they do it?” I wondered. I was happy to have only a mortgage, a motorcycle loan, and a car loan. I usually manage to pay off my credit card every month, through extreme discipline.

“Obviously they’re way old school. Put every penny they make right back into the business, less living expenses, which seem very modest. They don’t even have a mortgage or home equity loan on their little house over on Tenth Street. Their credit profile is a little weird, but sterling.”

“What do you mean, ‘a little weird’?”

“Well, they don’t even use credit cards much. Old school dudes, I’m telling you.”

Needless to say, this was an antiquated and barely comprehensible notion to Ming, who even at thirty, had been born into a credit economy. My grandparents used to call it “buying on time” and took a very dim view of it. Now it seemed to make the world go ‘round. Uh, well, at least until it made the world go STOP when the economy tanked in 2008.

I took a sip of the typically fine coffee—Callie’s Sillesta Decaf. “Anything anomalous in there at all that could help us, Ming?”

“Naw. A damn healthy little business.” He leaned back and folded his arms, smug and grinning. “Ming the Merciless would have ferreted it out of cyberspace by now.”